Lesson: Patience and kindness are essential to each other

There's a reason that folks say patience is a virtue. It's because, at times, it can be so hard to come by. That can be especially true when you spend all day every day with young children. Even the most patient of parents is going to have times when they've just had it up to here with something the kids are doing, or not doing, or whatever.

Once in a while, when my husband spends an unusual length of time with the kids (on his own or not), he shakes his head and tells me, "I don't know how you do it." Well, the answer to that is relatively simple, even if putting it into practice isn't always quite so easy. My "secret", if you want to call it that, is that I discovered a long time ago that I was a lot better at being patient if I made it a point of being polite to my children. Instead of giving orders right off the bat, I will ask nicely for the kids to do whatever I want done. I always say please. If they fuss and whine about it, I just repeat the request ... KINDLY. I don't argue, I don't reason, I just repeat the request ... usually word for word. Now, I'll admit, there are times when I get exasperated with them, and times that I finally just have to demand that they do what they're told. It happens. I'm no more amazingly patient than the next parent. I just know what works for me.

There's a two-fold reason I try to be polite to my children. To begin with, I don't want them to think that all Mommy ever does it order them around and get angry with them. I want them to remember their childhoods and their time with me as something that was a very loving and secure environment. But more than that, I want them to understand that it is important to always try and be nice to people, no matter how we may feel about what is happening. Ok, so your brother took one of your toys and whacked you over the head with it ... yes, that wasn't a nice thing to do and it hurt, but you need to try and BE NICE. My grandmother always called it "being sweet". "Be sweet!" was her parting admonition to us whenever we left their home. When my husband and I were dating he asked me one time why I was so sweet. I pondered it for a split second, and then said, "I guess because my Grandma always told me I was supposed to be!" I don't know how accurate that was at the time, but it's just what I thought of when he asked.

If I'm having a particularly difficult day with the kids, I'll try to take a time-out for myself, even if it's just a few minutes. Then I'll take a deep breath, calm myself down, and admonish myself to "be sweet". It seems to help me a lot. And for that, I suppose I should say "Thanks, Grandma!"